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My First MacBook
Zeromus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello!
I am hoping to get a MacBook in the near future (probably the $999 white one, but if you guys thing that the newer version is worth the extra $300, I'd consider it), and having not owned a Mac since about 1993, I'm kind of worried about taking the plunge from my Windows comfort zone (thank God for Bootcamp, right?).
I guess I'm looking for some general advice and such here - what are some programs I need to have? How should I take care of the computer? How do I avoid desktop clutter, which all of my friends with Macs seem to suffer from? What should I know? How do I make the most of it? How do I love my new Mac?
I am hoping to get a MacBook in the near future (probably the $999 white one, but if you guys thing that the newer version is worth the extra $300, I'd consider it), and having not owned a Mac since about 1993, I'm kind of worried about taking the plunge from my Windows comfort zone (thank God for Bootcamp, right?).
I guess I'm looking for some general advice and such here - what are some programs I need to have? How should I take care of the computer? How do I avoid desktop clutter, which all of my friends with Macs seem to suffer from? What should I know? How do I make the most of it? How do I love my new Mac?
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Absolutely this. The build quality is just unspeakably good, the unit feels incredibly sturdy while still being light and ergonomic, the touch pad is the best I've ever used, and the LED screen is fantastic for a laptop.
The unibody has: 33% more hard drive space, an LED backlit screen, DDR3 1066mhz ram (versus DDR2 667mhz), a multi-touch pad, and somewhat better battery life.
I see.
Well, my university computer store has the newer unit for $1149, barely more than the old white one would be from Apple anyway, so I guess I could probably handle that. :winky:
If you buy it just to save 300 bucks, you will be staring down a new upgrade sooner than later. And this will cost you much more money.
And with Snow Leopard on the horizon (which will vastly upgrade the computing power of any macs with Nvidia graphics cards), you really don't want to be stuck with last gen hardware in a next gen world.
You have been warned.
Get the Aluminum Macbook. I'll eat my own cock if you regret it.
Oh, and it looks like the educational discount will save you $50 on the $999 Macbook.
The aluminium Macbook is a much better machine, not for specs, but for build quality and design. It's sturdier, it doesn't get all grotty from resting your disgusting sweaty palms all over it, the trackpad is larger and feels better to use, the LED screen looks better, and the battery level indicator is on the side of the machine, not the base. If you pay extra monies you can get fancy lights in the keyboard but I don't go for that sort of nonsense.
You're not likely to notice the updated specs, but the above points are all things I notice when moving between my alBook and the old plastic one, and I think you're unlikely to regret getting the newer model.
Okay, now let's look at the rest of the machine. Dramatically better display, better touchpad, multi-touch gestures, support for more RAM (6GB max vs. 4GB), dramatically improved durability and ruggedness, and just an all-around nicer-looking, nicer-feeling machine.
It's not a performance thing, it's a user experience thing. Everything about the unibody just feels nice. My girlfriend has gone as far as saying I'm in a noticeably better mood when I'm using that laptop versus the countless other machines I use for work.
I just can't imagine anyone using both for an hour and then deciding, "nah, I prefer the cheap one".
It's a pretty awesome piece of hardware. I have some friends that got Macbooks just to run Linux on them.
You had me willing to concede the point up until that. That just sounds like fanboyism to me.
Here's what you do: If you don't mind spending the $300 extra, try both models out at a store or something and buy whichever you like better. If you really don't want to spend the money don't even bother looking at the aluminum models. I figure you'll be happier if you don't know what you're missing out on. 8-)
B.net: Kusanku
It'd be fanboyism if my other machines weren't (mostly) Macs too, and if I wasn't primarily using the unibody for Windows these days. :P
The only reason to get the plastic macbook is if you have a bunch of firewire peripherals, and even then you might consider replacing them as the metal macbook is that much better.
You're dead wrong.
I am going to use OSX, but I like the option of having Windows there, also.
Regarding helping you enjoy your Mac– how new to Macs are you? Do you understand the "closing the window doesn't necessarily close the app" and the "toolbar stays in one place, disconnected from the window" and the "download .dmg, mount it, drag your app to /Applications, then unmount the dmg, then delete the .dmg file" paradigms? Those are the biggest learning curves, I think.
Beyond that, the file structure is linux-y, with a ~/ home for each user and a structured /music, /movies, /photos, /documents, /sites below that. The built-in iLife software is phenomenal. iPhoto and iMovie are so nice these days. iPhoto saves your photos in one bundle behind the scenes, which can be disjointing for people used to having control of their files behind the scenes.
Hmmm... other things... uh, the Safari 4 beta won't be installed by default, but I highly recommend it. It's a solid beta and is super fast. Macupdate.com is a good place to find software that does x, y or z, if you're looking for some off-the-cuff software like an unrar solution or something. iUseThis.com is a pretty cool site for finding cool software, too.
Download Tweetie, Things, Delicious Library 2, Disco if you just want some cool looking / fun to use Mac software to play around with.
I also recommend downloading the unarchiver to replace the default OS X unarchive tool. Kind of like downloading 7z is usually one of the first things people do on Windows.
AppCleaner will allow you to delete the ancillary files (mostly plist– XML preferences– files stuck in /System/Library) when you delete an application.
Expandrive costs money but allows you to mount your FTP drives as hard drives easily. Worth every penny.
Macrumors is a pretty active forum if you need any help or anything. Also Apple's own support forums are super active (though Apple employees rarely, if ever, post there).
It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it's incredibly simple to mount a FTP server in Leopard without 3rd party software. In Finder, you just click Go -> Connect To Server and input your server information (including the ftp://).
On a similar note, MacFUSE is great for mounting all sorts of file systems. I use sshfs a lot to access my home folder on my school's Linux server.
This is horribly buggy and, more importantly, is read-only.
Expandrive is based on MacFUSE, and is fully supported. MacFUSE by itself is kind of buggy on OS X I've found.
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In a related note, Gamepedia is an application I moved to after using Delicious Library - although it only covers one type of media (with music, book, and film 'pedias sold separately), it works tremendously well, and supports just about any format. Although it doesn't look as nice, it does sport some nifty views like Cover Flow.
My new MacBook is beautiful.
Got the fancy new aluminum one and it's all I can do to not rub myself all over the sumptuous LED screen. I'm still getting used to all of this (even iChat is a pretty big transition from AIM for me), but I'm glad I took the plunge. Could someone help me understand "Spaces," though? And are there any neat things I should do with my dashboard?
Spaces hurt my brain because I always forget they're there.
Essentially imagine you have a bunch of monitors, but you can only see one at a time. That's spaces. You can assign certain applications to only open in certain spaces, but it confuses the hell out of me and makes me cry.
Delivery Status is pretty much the only dashboard widget I use, but you can put clippings of websites up on your dashboard as well, which is cool.
Do you know about Exposé? It's the best. With your fancy new aluminum macbook you can use some crazy gestures to control exposé. Check Apple -> System Preferences -> Trackpad.
Oh thank God, this is what I missed.
And yeah, Expose is awesome!
Also, don't feel weird about rubbing yourself on the screen. I do it every night before bed.
System Preferences -> Network, then click on an interface, then click "Advanced" on the bottom right. That will get you the information about the INCOMING internet connection. If your Mac is then repeating this for the DSi using internet sharing, the easiest thing to do is to have another machine connect to the Mac's shared connection, read off its IP info, and punch it into the DSi, changing the last part of the IP slightly.